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Comment: David Quinn: Holy neutral Ireland needs to stand up and be counted

Nobody has ever offered a proper explanation as to why Irish neutrality gives us a morality that taking sides does not.

Any rational person would have to agree that taking sides against Hitler during the second world war was the moral thing to do, and sitting on the fence was excusable only as a matter of expediency. The expediency excuse ran out when America joined the war in December 1941. After that, there was no possibility of a German invasion of Ireland.

It’s true that we helped out the allies in small, fairly unobtrusive ways, but our holy neutrality prevented us from providing what really counts in these situations: what Bismark called “iron and blood”. We let other nations do that while we benefited from the victory.

After the second world war our holy neutrality kept us out of direct involvement in the cold war. As the West prospered and